Punishing clubs won’t stop hooligans

Italy

Giorgio Tosatti

Corriere della Sera

Soccer games in Italy have become battlefields, said Giorgio Tosatti in Milan’s Corriere della Sera. In the last week alone, we saw 85 police officers injured in fights with fans; a game cut short when fans of the opposing team pelted the goalkeeper with bottles and flares; and a riot, complete with burning police cars, in a stadium parking lot. So it’s perfectly understandable that the government would declare “zero tolerance” for violence at the games. The problem is, the new rules “won’t punish the perpetrators”—the fascist thugs who crash the games—but rather the victims, the soccer clubs themselves. From now on, police are required to halt any game if a fight breaks out in the stands or if a player is hit. The team whose fans threw the objects will be penalized with an automatic 3–0 defeat. In effect, fans now have “every incentive” to dress up in rival colors and riot to hand their team an unearned victory. The only winner will be “Italy’s other favorite sport—assigning blame.”

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